HHS chief dismisses ‘Medicare for all’ as ‘too good to be true’

The Trump administration’s top health official on Thursday dismissed “Medicare for all” as a promise that’s too good to be true.

“When you drill down into the details, it’s clear that Medicare for all is a misnomer. What’s really being proposed is a single government system for every American that won’t resemble Medicare at all,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said during a wide-ranging speech in Nashville, Tenn.

{mosads}Azar said embracing Medicare for all would mean ignoring the mistakes of ObamaCare, which he called a failure.

“The main thrust of Medicare for all is giving you a new government plan and taking away your other choices,” Azar said.

This was not the first time a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services has tried to discredit the idea of Medicare for all. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma in July called it socialized medicine that would put seniors at risk.

Medicare for all has become increasingly popular among Democrats and is now favored by many of the party’s potential 2020 presidential candidates.

However, many congressional Democrats have yet to completely embrace the idea, and while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has sponsored a “Medicare for all” bill, there’s no real push for it in Congress.

Republicans have been pointing to Democratic calls for single-payer as a key rebuttal in this year’s midterm campaign, part of an effort to push back against Democratic attacks on GOP bills to repeal ObamaCare.

Aside from attacking Medicare for all, Azar in his speech praised President Trump as a better steward of ObamaCare than former President Obama ever was.

“The president who was supposedly trying to sabotage the Affordable Care Act has proven better at managing it than the president who wrote the law,” Azar said.

He said premiums have been decreasing and there are more plans available for consumers to choose from on state exchanges.

According to Azar, premiums for the typical ObamaCare plan will decrease in 2019 by an average of 2 percent nationwide.  

But insurance experts say the main reason premiums are either stable or decreasing this year is because they were so high in 2018. Insurers overpriced their plans this year, driven by the uncertainty over how the Trump administration would handle ObamaCare.

In addition, studies have shown premiums would also be decreasing much more if not for Trump administration policies like the elimination of the individual mandate penalty and expansion of short-term plans.